Balancing Biodiversity and Incomes of Upland Communities: Approaches and Experiences of the Upland Development Programme in Southern mindanao

This paper presents the experiences of the European Union-assisted Upland DevelopmentProgramme in Southern Mindanao (UDP) in balancing natural resource conservation andsustainable agriculture in the uplands by promoting diversified farming systems (DFS). DFSencourages the planting of forest and fruit trees together with short and medium term crops,integration of soil and water conservation measures and use of appropriate technologies thatincrease production without increasing the area cultivated. The system uses the Slope TreatmentOriented Practices (STOP) approach where crops, trees and contour hedgerow technologies areproperly matched with slopes and soil conditions. It is supported by parallel UDP projects onresource management, marketing and enterprise development, rural financing, infrastructure andcommunity and institutional development. Significant initial impacts of DFS and the parallelprogrammes include increase in tree and other vegetative covers, increase in farm productivityand income, increase in the adoption of organic farming technologies, and the passing of localordinances promoting soil and water conservation and resolutions providing support to localextension systems. Sustainable and community-managed extension systems are beingdeveloped to bring the DFS to a wider reach and adoption. Moreover, efforts to assist localgovernments in mobilising Upland Barangay Associations and communities for forest protectionand planting of more trees along roads and riverbanks and in spring sources are on-going.

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